Abstract

High-resolution Raman measurements of the longitudinal optical (LO) phonon in GaN reveal a complex line shape that can be explained in terms of the angular dispersion of LO phonons in this material. A simple geometrical model of the line shape makes it possible to extract the true anharmonic full width at half maximum 2Γ of the mode. The value of this parameter, 2Γ=2.4 at 20 K, is in much better agreement with time-domain measurements by Tsen and co-workers [Appl. Phys. Lett. 72, 2132 (1998)] than any previous frequency-domain measurement. The results indicate that angular dispersion effects must be carefully considered in any analysis of Raman spectra from noncubic crystals.